Genetic and Taxonomic Diversity of the House Mouse Mus musculus from the Asian Part of the Former Soviet Union

Abstract

Genetic diversity of the house mouse Mus musculus from 12 local populations (n = 65) of the central and eastern parts of the former Soviet Union was examined using RAPD–PCR. About 400 loci were identified, encompassing approximately 500 kb of the mouse genome. Genetic diversity was assessed using NTSYS, POPGENE, TFPGA, and TREECON software programs. In general, the house mouse sample from the regions examined was characterized by moderate genetic variation: polymorphism P = 95.6%, P99 = 60.7%, P95 = 24.2%; heterozygosity H = 0.089; the mean observed number of alleles na = 1.97; effective number of alleles ne = 1.13; intrapopulation differentiation δS = 0.387; gene diversity h = 0.09. Individual local populations displayed different levels of genetic isolation: the genetic subdivision index Gst varied from 0.086 to 0.324 at gene flow Nm varying from 5.3 to 1.05, while the interpopulation genetic distance DN ranged from 0.059 to 0.186. Most of the genetic diversity of the total sample resided within the local populations: HS = 0.06, total gene diversity HT = 0.09. The exact test for differentiation, however, did not confirm the affiliation of all the mice examined to one population: χ2 = 1446, d.f. = 724, P = 0.000. Molecular markers specific to four subspecies (musculus, castaneus, gansuensis, and wagneri) were identified. Moreover, in some cases the populations and individual animals exhibited traits of different subspecies, suggesting their introgressive hybridization. It was demonstrated that the house mouse fauna on the territories investigated was characterized by the prevalence of musculus-specific markers, while gansuensis-specific markers ranked second. The castaneus-specific markers were highly frequent in the Far East, but almost absent in Central Asia, where wagneri-specific markers were detected. It was suggested that house mice from Turkmenistan could belong to one of the southern subspecies, which had not deeply penetrated into the Asian fauna of the former Soviet Union. In phenogenetic (UPGMA) and phylogenetic (NJ) reconstructions this form with the high bootstrap support was placed at the tree base, while the isolation of other clusters was not statistically significant. It is thus likely that the house mice from Turkmenistan are closest to the ancestral form of the genus Mus on the territory of the former Soviet Union.

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